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Kin of Greyhounds constable upset

Commissioner of Police and DIG of Greyhounds express their inability to send the body by air

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Police Department which was smarting under the CPI (Maoist) attack on the launch carrying Greyhounds in the Chitrakonda reservoir Orissa on Sunday and is involved in a major operation to recover the bodies trapped in the sunken launch, is also beset with the problem of despatching the decomposed bodies of Greyhounds to their native places.

It is five days since the attack took place and the more than 30 personnel trapped in the cabin of the sunken launch must have been dead. Since Thursday the police have been able to recover more bodies, which are in a highly decomposed state.

No exception

Body of one of the Greyhounds Md. Salauddin, which was brought here for post mortem at Andhra Medical College’s mortuary on King George Hospital premises here, was no exception.

After the post-mortem was completed around 6 p.m., the Greyhound constable’s paternal uncles Md. Fasiuddin and Md. Shabir who came here from their native village Annasagar in Mahaboobnagar district, pleaded with Commissioner of Police N. Sambasiva Rao and DIG of Greyhounds Govind Singh to make arrangements for sending the body by helicopter or aircraft.

Fervent plea

He sacrificed his life for the country and if a big man or an officer met his death in the same way his body would be sent by his body would be sent by air and why not the same facility be provided to Salauddin’s body, they asked.

“The body is decomposed and in a very bad shape. It would decompose further by the time it reaches our village tomorrow evening after travelling on road for 900 km.

It would be heart-breaking for our people who are waiting for the body for the last five days”, they said to the officers.

But Mr. Sambasiva Rao and Mr. Govind Singh expressed their inability to send the body by air.

Salauddin’s uncles also rejected their suggestion that they would travel by air to reach their village by Friday afternoon and make arrangements for the last rites by the time the body reached the village.

They wanted the officials to at least arrange for an embalming certificate so that they would take the body on their own by air.

Even this was not possible as the body was in such a bad shape that it could not be embalmed. As the body passed by the villages and towns, people would be inconvenienced a lot.

This had happened in the case of Uday Nag’s body sent to Warangal on Tuesday, they said. Salauddin’s uncles relented after the police officials requested them to understand the situation, but they were not happy.